After a New Hampshire House committee voted to kick the can down the road on whether to compel insurance companies to cover wraparound mental health services for children, Gov. Kelly Ayotte was \u201coutraged.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI was incredibly flabbergasted and disappointed by the House vote on this,\u201d Ayotte told reporters in her office following the vote on Wednesday. \u201cInsurers like Anthem keep claiming that they\u2019re negotiating in good faith, but they\u2019re clearly stalling because they don\u2019t want to cover mental health coverage for children, and it\u2019s wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ayotte was referring to the House Commerce and Consumer Affairs Committee\u2019s vote on Senate Bill 498<\/a>, in which lawmakers recommended, 14-4, sending the bill to interim study. If the full House agrees with that recommendation, the bill would be sidelined for at least a year, ostensibly so lawmakers can study the issue further.<\/p>\n Wraparound services seek<\/a> to connect disparate and complicated care systems, including mental healthcare, special education, and child protective services so they can work together seamlessly for those experiencing a mental health crisis. In New Hampshire, the state-run FAST Forward program offers the care. The issue has been a perennial debate for lawmakers for several years. In 2025,<\/a> a similar measure (Senate Bill 128<\/a>) aimed at requiring insurers to cover wraparound mental health services died in the Senate and a subsequent effort to attach the measure to the larger budget legislation failed.<\/p>\n Mental health advocacy groups \u2014 including the National Alliance on Mental Illness, Connected Families NH, and New Futures \u2014 have long pushed for the legislation.<\/p>\n The insurance companies oppose the measure<\/a>, arguing that it will force them to increase premiums, and some conservative activists have characterized<\/a> the coverage requirement as a hidden tax on all insurance customers. Indeed, lawmakers on the Commerce and Consumer Affairs Committee have adopted that language in arguing against the bill.<\/p>\n \u201cThe assessment is flat out a tax,\u201d Rep. Carry Spier, a Nashua Democrat, said during the committee meeting Wednesday.<\/p>\n Ayotte, who put out a statement Tuesday before the meeting urging lawmakers to approve the measure, doesn\u2019t buy those arguments or any of the insurance companies\u2019 claims.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know why any House member would listen to what they say about this,\u201d Ayotte said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s unbelievable to me that they think that it\u2019s more important to support the insurance companies than it is to support the children of this state when it comes to a critical issue like mental health.\u201d<\/p>\n Ayotte said this isn\u2019t a tax; it\u2019s \u201ca coverage issue.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAnthem keeps saying that they\u2019re negotiating in good faith,\u201d she said. \u201cBut all it has been is a dilatory tactic, them trying to delay, to get the legislation off the table. We wouldn\u2019t need legislation if Anthem and other insurers agreed to cover this mental health for children.\u201d<\/p>\n Jim Turner, a spokesperson for Anthem, wrote in a statement to the Bulletin that the company is \u201cdisappointed in Governor Ayotte\u2019s comments this week regarding Anthem and our position on SB 498.\u201d<\/p>\n Turner said the company had met with state officials on multiple occasions to work toward a resolution and signed onto a joint letter from several insurers to Ayotte \u201cdemonstrating a shared commitment to continue working on this matter.\u201d<\/p>\n Ayotte argued that the insurers \u201cjust want to give us a bunch of language that means nothing. It is not a commitment, and I find that completely unacceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n Turner said the company specifically takes issue with a board the bill would establish to be in charge of assessing fees on companies in order to fund the care.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have been clear with all stakeholders about our concerns with SB 498,\u201d Turner said. \u201cIt would create a nonprofit board to assess new fees on commercially insured customers. The fees would fund undefined mental health services with two Medicaid-contracted care-management entities, or CMEs. Because these CMEs provide services for Medicaid and not commercially insured members, Anthem is continuing to work in good faith with them on a path forward.\u201d<\/p>\n Still, SB 498 isn\u2019t entirely dead. The committee\u2019s vote serves only as a recommendation. The bill will soon go to a vote of the full House, where lawmakers have the option to reject the committee\u2019s guidance. As such, Ayotte said she\u2019s not giving up on the issue this year.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re going to continue to push this even though the committee voted it down,\u201d Ayotte said. New Hampshire Bulletin<\/a> is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. New Hampshire Bulletin maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Dana Wormald for questions: info@newhampshirebulletin.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After a New Hampshire House committee voted to kick the can down the road on whether to compel…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":636833,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[97,259,260],"class_list":["post-636832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-health","tag-mental-health","tag-mentalhealth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=636832"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636832\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/636833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=636832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=636832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=636832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\u201cI\u2019m not going to let up on this. We need to do the right thing.\u201d<\/p>\n